Here is our landing experience:
Did our landing on Canada Day, we reached at the Thousand island border around 3:30pm.
IO at the booth: What's the purpose of the visit?
KT: We are doing our landing.
IO at the booth: Asked some questions about what we are carrying etc and then gave us a yellow slip and told us to go to door 1.
At the Door 1 , we waited a few minutes before the immigration officer showed up and asked for our documents.
IO for Landing: Documents please.
KT: We gave him all the documentation including COPR.
IO for Landing: Asked us are we moving permanently today?
KT: We said no we are going back to USA on the 4th and will be moving once we find Jobs in Alberta, as we are nominated by AINP program.
IO for Landing: Looked confused and asked did Alberta issued our PR?
KT: no, CIC but we were nominated by Alberta and its a special program.
IO for Landing: Still had a blank look at his face, asked us to sign the COPR forms.
IO for Landing: Told us to wait there while he updates the system.
<came back after 15 minutes, with COPR stapled to our passport and told us to go to the declaration queue for goods to follow>
Officer at Import/Export counter: Asked for the forms, looked at it and said you have filled it wrong. Gave us new forms and asked to fill them up.
As we did not have our car title we had taken our Registration. We showed him the registration as proof of VIN of the car. The officer was nice enough to understand that we are not moving today and dont have title as the car is financed and allowed us to add the car to goods to follow list.
Once we got done at the Import/export counter we went back to IO for PR card and asked if we could apply for our PR cards. He said we cannot as we are not moving permanently today and told us to apply when we move permanently.
We took our rental car and drove to Ottawa. On Saturday when we explained the whole experience to my sister she told us that we could apply for PR card at Ottawa office and should do that. After doing some Google search we found that we can go to the Ottawa International airport,which has a border agency office open 12 hours a day. My wife called up the airport's border agency office and explained them whole story how we could not apply for PR card would it be possible for us to come down and apply for our PR cards they said yes come down anytime.
We went to the airport and walked to the border agency office. Waited few minutes before an officer showed up and asked what was the purpose of our visit. We again explained him that we have done our landing would like to apply for our PR cards. He looked at our passports and the stapled copr form, and told us that we dont need as the first page of the form with photo will automatically be used for PR card. We told him that the officer at the border never took an address to mail the COPR cards. He asked for the address that we wanted to get the PR cards on, we gave him my (distant)cousins address in Calgary. He came back after 15 minutes and said we are all set and should receive our PR cards in 6 weeks. Told us if we dont receive the cards then call at a 800 number that he gave us with file number he provided for tracking.
That's it.
We did not use AVR as both me and my wife have valid H1B on our passport.
KT= Kanadatrustee
